Adults with ADHD
Adults who discover they have ADHD long after they have gone through high school, and perhaps have made their way through college, career, and a family have a very different experience of ADHD.
Even with medication to reduce symptoms now, a lifetime of untreated ADHD leaves psychological scars that can take years to work through. Therapy can bridge the gap between diagnosis and new self-discovery.
ADHD in Midlife
Adults who discover their diagnosis later in life, particularly if they find a medication that is effective, have unique challenges; the one they often are unprepared for is the grief.
- Grief for the child who didn’t have to struggle.
- Grief for the college student who might have done better and gotten a better job.
- Grief for the missed opportunities, the broken relationships, the career you didn’t have.
As the grief unfolds, there is a paradigm shift in your identity, an examination of the self in a new light. I often hear adults ask: was everything about me my ADHD?
And beyond the identity reckoning, the most painful re-examination is the one that happens when you reassess your parents with new information. Many people spend years reconstructing an understanding of their family history and they fit in to it.
This is a road I have traveled. It’s lonely, but you don’t have to walk it alone.
ADHD in Young Adulthood
When you come into an ADHD diagnosis as a young adult, you may have spent years believing you were broken. You may have struggled in school without ever understanding why; you may have arrived at your college campus and found that without the structure of high school all your coping mechanisms started to fail you.
You might be struggling with alcohol, or toxic relationships. Maybe you develop friendships that feel like instant connections only to have those friends quietly withdraw… or end in explosions. You may have been told you suffer with anxiety or depression–or both–only to find that nothing helps.
Coming to understand that all of this, or much of it, has always been ADHD can come with enormous relief; sometimes before or after the long struggle with believing it is real. Have I fooled everyone into thinking I have this?
The road ahead has many pitfalls, but also enormous potential for change. I can help you re-organize how you see yourself, create new routines and supports to create lasting positive behaviors, and discover the version of yourself that is capable, lovable, and ready to find success.